1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a portable printer and a camera, particularly to a portable instant printer and an electronic still camera having an instant printer incorporated thereinto, that have an image processing function for making ID photographs.
2. Background Arts
Generally, certificates and licenses, such as a driving license and a passport, need to be attached a photograph of the granted person for identification. Hereinafter, such a photograph will be referred to as an ID photograph. The ID photograph is standardized in format and layout for each kind. As for passports, the ID photograph is determined to bear the head and the shoulder of the granted person in a full face wearing no hut and no color glasses, and may not include any subject in the background. As shown in FIG. 14, the length A and the width B of the ID photograph for passport is 4.5 cm and 3.5 cm respectively, wherein the length C from the crown to the chin must be 27 mm±2 mm, the length D from the left margin to the center of the face must be 17 mm±2 mm, and the length E from the top margin to the crown must be 7 mm±2 mm. As for driving license, the ID photograph is determined to be 3.0 cm×2.4 cm, contain the upper one third of the licensee wearing no hut and no color glasses, and may not include any subject in the background. To adjust to these standards, the ID photographs are usually taken by professional photographers or by an automatic ID photograph taking machine.
Meanwhile, many types of digital color printers have been known in the art, that print a full-color image on a recording medium on the basis of digital image data obtained through an electronic imaging device, such as a video camera, a digital still camera or the like, from a subject or a full-color original, e.g. a negative or positive image recorded on photographic film or paper. It is also known in the art to read out image data from a memory medium, such as a card memory, and process it so as to print out a hard copy of a processed or synthesized image.
A portable instant printer that uses an instant film sheet as a recording medium has also been known in the art. The instant printer exposes the instant film sheet by projecting three color light beams from a recording head that is driven by digital image data. Also, an electronic still camera having such an instant printer incorporated therein, hereinafter referred to as a digital instant camera, has been developed to produce a photograph instantly after it is taken by the electronic still camera.
It is possible to take the ID photograph by the digital instant camera, but the photographer must adjust the subject to the standards of the ID photograph, in the same way as the conventional camera. It is also possible to produce the ID photograph by use of a digital printer on the basis of image data obtained through some imaging electronic imaging device. However, the image data must be previously processed to adjust the picture to the standards of the ID photograph to make, by use of a personal computer or the like installed with an image processing program, and it has been difficult to process the image data so as to adjust to the ID photograph standards on the personal computer.
There are printers and electronic still cameras that have an image processing function. However, the conventional image processing function is just for synthesizing an ornamental framing image with a photographed image or for merging a caption or the like in the photographed image. It has conventionally been impossible to make or take the standardized ID photographs even with the digital printer or still camera having the image processing function.